Wartime recipes, substitutions and other related austerity hints

[Deleted User]

Morning and what a glorious one it is outside today, definitely time to spend in the garden or at the very least with a window open to enjoy the sunshine, it's up to 20 outside as I type, phew!

Some pasta ideas today that I've come across in various of the books I have on my wartime shelf to use 'what we're likely to have' rather than conventional pasta sauces that we're used to.  Many of these may sound odd but would probably be tasty.

Macaroni


Cold cooked macaroni served mixed with grated carrot, grated cheese and diced celery on a bed of lettuce, the whole dressed with salad cream/mayonnaise/vinaigrette.

Cooked macaroni, diced cheese and diced apple added to a batter and cooked as a Yorkshire pudding in the oven.

Cooked hot macaroni served in a curry sauce garnished with cooked peas.

Hot cooked macaroni tossed in melted butter and stirred through with some chutney/mixed pickle and topped with grated cheese

Hot cooked macaroni served tossed in fried onion mixed with tomato puree and topped with grated cheese.

Hot cooked macaroni served in a thin white sauce with grated cheese in along with a spoon of mustard and salt and pepper

Macaroni milk pudding (2oz macaroni cooked in 1 pint milk, 1 egg, 2oz sugar) Cook the macaroni in he milk over a very gentle simmer until tender, leave to cool.  Add in egg and sugar, turn into an ovenproof dish that is well greased a,d cook in a moderate oven for 30 minutes.



Spaghetti


Serve cooked spaghetti with butter, grated cheese and fresh chopped tomatoes.

With cooked diced celery and grated cheese.

with fried onion and cheese

with a curry sauce and some diced cooked vegetables including peas.

with a parsley sauce , diced tomato and grated cheese

with grated raw beetroot and onion .

Many of these may be bland to the modern palate BUT if stocks run low and we're faced with a random selection of items in the fridge and the store cupboard they might make a meal to keep your tums from being empty.

Siebrie

Boiling the pasta in in water with a stock cube or some spices will greatly improve the flavour.

fairy3

Morning all - thank you for the recipes MLW - was just looking at a recipe from my stork book for macaroni pie which uses 4oz of meat and 1 tbsp tomato ketchup along with cheese mushrooms onions, worcester sauce, parsley and of course stork. Most surprising thing was the recipe serves 6-8 people! Wow our portions have increased massively but may give it a go. I made the chocolate crunch and added crushed nuts and melted chocolate sort of drizzled artistically over the top - went down a treat.

Pyxis

I’ve got to try and use a surfeit of carrots, as I now have too many, and may get more later in the week! (A fixed veg/fruit box coming).
i fancy some sort of dessert, but not cake, as my appetite has reduced a lot and I need to eat the other veg

Someone suggested making a halwa, so I might improvise with that. I have some molasses sugar... would it be ok to use that? I don’t like refined white sugar much.

[Deleted User]

Sugar is sugar it will change the colour of the halwa and probably make it taste richer but molasses sugar should work as well as granulated.

Pyxis

MrsLurcherwalker said:

Sugar is sugar it will change the colour of the halwa and probably make it taste richer but molasses sugar should work as well as granulated.

Thank you. I’ll have to experiment with the amount as I don’t like things to be too sweet, but I like the flavour of the darker sugars.

[Deleted User]

Thinking about carrots, somewhere I'm pretty certain I saw that you can 'candy' carrots in a sugar solution in the same way you can to make 'candied fruits' but for the life of me I can't remember which book I've seen it in.  Might that be something you'd fancy Pyxis?

skogar

If you have a lot of carrots to get rid of you could try making carrot jam - there is a Mrs Beeton recipe - uses lemons / lemon juice and sugar as well as carrots. I haven't tried making it but its been one I've been meaning to try at some point.

Pyxis

MrsLurcherwalker said:

Thinking about carrots, somewhere I'm pretty certain I saw that you can 'candy' carrots in a sugar solution in the same way you can to make 'candied fruits' but for the life of me I can't remember which book I've seen it in.  Might that be something you'd fancy Pyxis?

I’m not too keen on candied fruits, as they are too sweet for me. 
Good suggestion, though.

skogar said:

If you have a lot of carrots to get rid of you could try making carrot jam - there is a Mrs Beeton recipe - uses lemons / lemon juice and sugar as well as carrots. I haven't tried making it but its been one I've been meaning to try at some point.

I’m not really a jammy person; I prefer marmalade, and even that I don’t have too often.

Sorry to be difficult! I’ll try the halwa and see what happens! 😁
The recipe says ghee, which I don’t have as such, so thought I’d just use butter and skip the clarifying bit.

-taff

Fry a garlic clove and some chilli and oil, mix in pasta

Fry some bacon fat and/or a piece of bacon, add cream or little milk, bit of cornflour or flour, cook out,  and some cheese, mix in pasta

Cooked pasta and tomato sauce/tomato concentrate and cheese - childhood favourite

pasta in a cheesy sauce [ packet mix will do] add handful of sweetcorn and some chopped up frankfurters or sausage

Chilli and pasta and cheese [ cheesy mac n chilli]

Vegetable soup with pasta or rice to bulk